


Proxy

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Anal Sex, Angst, M/M, Mentions of incest, Rough Sex, Sex, ear biting, slight dubcon I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 08:32:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10681587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Sometimes, Godfrey wishes Delaney would look at him.Other times, he’s almost relieved not to be able to see the man’s face.James and Godfrey have sex and it's all rough and miserable. This can be set during season 1, but it's obviously a slight divergence from canon as they clearly weren't sleeping with each other on the show.





	Proxy

Sometimes, Godfrey wishes Delaney would look at him.

Other times, he’s almost relieved not to be able to see the man’s face.

Instead he stares at the bedsheets, at the wall, at the makeup and bottles on the dresser. He never closes his eyes, because in the darkness of his own head it would be too easy to see something fake, something that wasn’t there. It would be too easy to pretend this is something he’s always wanted, instead of being exactly what he deserves.

Delaney’s hands are hard and bruisingly strong against his hips, Delaney’s cock pressing deep within him. Sometimes he talks to himself, mumbling growled words and at first Godfrey would strain to hear them, desperate as a drowning man to hear his own name. Now he doesn’t even listen. James is loudest when he cums, a deep cry from the back of his throat. Godfrey stays silent, still and quiet, and he never cums while James is there.

He always cums afterwards, with his hand fisted tight around his own cock, a gasp like a prayer on his lips. Sometimes there are tears in his eyes at the whole fucking _unfairness_ of it; of the world, of his sins, of James Delaney.

Eventually he stops wearing the wig. James’s hands stroke gently through the soft black hair and Godfrey grows it out and buys a ribbon to tie it back at work. The same ribbon slides around his throat in the evenings, tied at the nape. James is always gentle with his hair, pushing it over his face, twisting it softly around his fingers. There’s something in him that James is looking for, a face and a body that will never be found.

His skin is too light. His hips are too narrow. He knows. He _knows_.

He buys dark dresses with high empire waistlines, and gloves made of black lace. James brings, without comment, a pair of slender dangling earrings that Godfrey tremblingly clips onto the lobes of his ears. That night he’s fucked hard and breathless, and James cums with the sound of a man in pain.

Godfrey wants desperately to look at him, to hold him, to touch him, to comfort him. _I know what you want,_ he wants to scream, _and I know it’ll kill you trying to get it and I can give you a hundred times better_.

But James Delaney doesn’t want better. He doesn’t want to heal and recover, he wants to break, to break into sharp dangerous shards that will slice the East India Company open at the seams. He wants to destroy every evil thing there is in the world, up to and including himself.

Godfrey isn’t stupid. He knows what he’s being used for. If that were all it was, over the side of the bed, fucked hard and rough by the demons in James Delaney’s head, he knows he could walk away from it. But it isn’t, it _isn’t_ because sometimes there’s still James Delaney inside there somewhere. Brash and overconfident little Empire-built psychopath that he is. Sometimes before James starts, or after he finishes, he’ll stroke gently against Godfrey’s skin, like he's calming a skittish horse.

“Alright, Godders?”

Godfrey never answers; just nods, or trembles, or twitches. James isn’t asking for the answer.

“You don’t fucking deserve me, eh Godd?”

There are two different meanings to that, and James Delaney means both of them at once. But Godfrey doesn’t mind because at least James is saying his name.

He’s never said the other name, but Godfrey hears it anyway. He hears it in every press of Delaney’s hands while they fuck, every stroke of his cock, every snap of his hips. The other name is there, ever-present, hanging between them like the thread that holds the sword of Damocles. Neither of them say it but Godfrey knows they are both thinking it.

Godfrey buys a black lace veil and pins it into his hair. It hangs down over his face and he hopes, shamefully, that it might allow him to watch Delaney while they fuck.

It does not. He’s still on all fours, facing the wall.

“Do you see me?” Delaney growls, the one time he’s ever spoken directly to Godfrey, with his lips pressed against the rim of Godfrey’s ear, his teeth worrying at the clip on earrings until Godfrey whines in pain. “Do you see me in your dreams?”

“Yes.” Godfrey whispers.

James yanks the earring so hard it snaps off his ear and Godfrey feels tears jump into his eyes.

“Liar.” James growls.

“I’ve seen you in dreams,” Godfrey murmurs back, “But they’re my dreams, not yours.” _In my dreams,_ he wants to add, but doesn’t dare, _we sip champagne by the Mediterranean Sea and your arm wraps around my waist and you call me by my name and face me when you fuck me._

James’s tongue licks at the sore abused ear, “I like you when you lie.”

Godfrey spends most of his life lying. If James wants, he can lie about his dreams, and lie about his looks, and lie about his body and he could lie from London to the ends of the world and he knows he’ll never be good enough for James Delaney.

Because he’s Michael Godfrey, and not Zilpha Geary.


End file.
